Review for Eden Of The East Movie 2: Paradise Lost (Review)

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Introduction
Another six months have passed, and now we finally get to see the conclusion of Eden of the East in the form of the final feature film, Paradise Lost. The end of 2010 saw the UK release of Kenji Kamiyama's peerless Eden of the East anime series, 11 episodes of animated event television, a social satire, and cyberpunk mystery that was conceivably the anime release of the year. It began when a young woman, Saki Morimi, prior to entering the workplace, took time to visit the US with her college friends. Ditching them, she scooted off to Washington DC to make a wish at the White House fountain. She was rescued from the attentions of Homeland Security by a naked amnesiac holding a gun and a phone, and so began a remarkable adventure.

The naked amnesiac turned out to be one Akira Takizawa, a participant in an unbelievable game. The phone links him to a concierge named Juiz, and a balance of 10 billion yen. As long as there is enough money in the account, whatever he wishes for will be enacted by Juiz. The point of the game is to save Japan from its downward spiral. Losing the game, running out of money would be terminal. Of course Takizawa knows none of this at first, and with Saki's help he starts about piecing together his past, and learning about the game. One thing he does learn is that someone named Mr Outside is responsible for his situation, and it becomes a priority for him to find this clandestine manipulator. He also learns that there are eleven other players in the game, and not everyone is playing nice. Some people believe that to save Japan, they need to destroy it and rebuild from the ground up. The end of the series became a race against time to save the country, but it wasn't without cost. Akira Takizawa made one final wish to Juiz…

The previous film caught up with events six months after the second Careless Monday, the explosive conclusion to the TV series that left Akira without his memory once more, and Japan reeling from a barely diverted attack that sends its economy into recession, lowering its stock in the world. Takizawa became a folk hero, the Air King, but the man himself vanished. Saki and her NEET friends made a success of the Eden of the East software, and she used that financial success to fund her search for Akira. She found him living with a new identity, Akira Iinuma in the US where he was still the target for certain others playing the Selecao game. As that film concluded Akira's memories had been restored, and he and Saki were on a plane back to Japan.

The Paradise Lost movie begins as they land back in Japan, and walk straight into further controversy. None other than Chigusa Iinuma, widow of the late Prime Minister Seiji Iinuma, meets them and she is taking umbrage at rumours that Akira is his illegitimate son. The Selecao game is heating up, and Akira will have to change the rules if he is to stay ahead. Recent events have proved that even if he is safe, that means nothing as long as his concierge is in danger. First he has to discover the truth of his parentage, and his recovered memories give them a place to start looking. He asks Saki to find his mother, while he goes to find and rescue Juiz. But the odds are stacked against him this time, the Eden of the East group have their own problems to deal with, now labelled as terrorist sympathisers, while the government is turning against the Selecao game itself, blaming all its players for the Careless Monday attack. And Mr Outside is still out there, pulling strings…

Picture
Eden of the East: Paradise Lost gets a solid 1.78:1 widescreen transfer to this Blu-ray disc. The image is clear and colourful throughout, bringing the animation across without any issue. The character designs are unaltered from the television series, while the world design also maintains the series' high quality. That would be my one brief, and pointless nitpick about the movie, that in terms of quality it matches the television series, not exceeds it. There is an overall softness to the image that you wouldn't expect in a dedicated feature film, detail levels are concurrent with the television series, although higher on Blu-ray than on DVD. This time I didn't notice as much colour banding or aliasing, although that may be down to six months worth of Blu-ray comfort zone, rather than the new toy eagerness I had when I reviewed The King of Eden.

The images in the review are sourced from the press release, and aren't necessarily representative of the Blu-ray disc.

Sound
The Blu-ray disc gets Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese and English soundtracks, with optional English subtitles and a signs only track. With a lot of Japanese text courtesy of computer monitors and mobile phone screens, you're going to need the signs, and probably be quick off the mark on the pause button as well, as Funimation try to overlay the signs on the text, resulting in some odd angles and aspects to the writing. In comparison with the DVD of the series, the surround here is richer and more vibrant, bringing the action across well. There is a greater level of discrete audio placement here, and the movie has had an upgrade in audio, if not the visuals. I opted as always for the original language track, but the English dub is no small potatoes either, with the cast living up to the high standard set by their Japanese counterparts. Kenji Kawai provides the music, and it's very much a contemporary and even conventional music style that accompanies the film, as opposed to the more avant-garde and adventurous music styles that I usually associate him with.

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